Angel Ricardo Ricardo Rios’ abstraction has an eagerness to it, a blur of boundaries within the space that it occupies. The mixing and intertwining of subjects gives way to explosions of color, texture, and shape, some of which are painted directly with his hands. His paintings are full of life force, sensuality, unusual palettes, and the ripeness of florals and fruits. To understand Ricardo Rios’s work, one must acknowledge two essential elements. The first is a playful, joyful, and intimate expression that has an intense, frenzied, sexual nature, and the second is his work’s refusal to be confined by the edges of the canvas. Often it appears as if his energetic compositions want to break free. Angel Ricardo Ricardo Rios was born in 1965 in Cuba where he graduated from the Higher Institute of Art in Havana. He has exhibited individually since 1981 in multiple institutions including Chapo University Museum, Popular Art Museum in Mexico City, Galeria Luis Sandoval Contemporary Art in Mexico City and Fernando Pradilla Gallery in Madrid. He has exhibited collectively in Zona Maco in Mexico City, Art Miami and the Biennial of Havana in Cuba. Ricardo has received a number of awards and mentions including Honorable Mention in the fourth Biennial of Visual Arts Yucatan Mexico as well as multiple publications including Art Magazine Spain and Art Nexus.